A closer look shows Apple’s A4 is “tailored,” not “bespoke”

The closest public analysis done yet of Apple's A4 chip confirms more of what …

Analysis of Apple's A4 didn't stop in the month after the iPad's launch—a number of groups have continued to poke, prod, and photograph Apple's chip, looking for insight into a question that will be familiar to longtime Apple watchers who remember the 68K and PowerPC eras. That question is this: what, exactly, is Apple's processor strategy?

In the current mobile space, just as in the desktop PC space of the pre-Intel era, that larger question of strategy implies a host of smaller questions, like just how much influence do Apple's in-house hardware teams exert over the designs, and where is that influence manifested? What is Apple's long-term plan for playing in the hardware market, and does the company really expect to pit its boutique, Apple-specific designs against the wider commodity market and win?

The EETimes is hosting the latest and most in-depth attempt to understand the nature of Apple's A4—the chip's origins and what it says about Apple's plans. If you're up for it, it's best to look through the whole thing, but I'll give some highlights and takeaways here.

The first takeaway is that, contrary to a popular and recent rumor that has bubbled up in Macdom, the A4 and the Samsung chip that will be used in the upcoming Galaxy S smartphone (the S5PC110) are not the same processor. The two chips are, however, very close, and have the same CPU core. Close visual inspection shows that the two parts sport identical Cortex A8 cores, a fact that should put to rest any notion that PA Semi had anything to do with designing the processor core.

Though it's not 100 percent certain (at least to my knowledge), it's widely and reasonably believed that the 1GHz, 45nm S5PC110 uses the "Hummingbird" A8 variant developed by Intrinsity. If this rumor is in fact true—and it's quite difficult to imagine that it isn't, given that Hummingbird's main claim to fame is that it gets the A8 up to 1GHz on 45nm—then the A4's core is an Intrinsity-designed Hummingbird, as well.

Of course, we already knew this to be the case, but now we really know it. To my mind, the new die shots put the question to rest definitively: Intrinsity designed the Hummingbird core for Apple and Samsung to use in their respective ARM A8 SoCs, and then got itself bought by Apple.

The second takeaway from the EET analysis is the confirmation of another widely held belief, namely that what's "custom" about the A4 is not necessarily any of the individual components, but rather the arrangement. Outside of the Intrinsity-supplied Hummingbird core, the other blocks on the die appear to be from Samsung's standard cell library. What this means is that the A4 and the S5PC110 differ only in the arrangement and mix of these noncore blocks (e.g., graphics and I/O).

The third conclusion, again merely further confirmation of what we already know, is that A4 is an evolutionary design that draws from both the S5PC110 and the iPhone 3GS SoC and makes changes by adding and subtracting blocks. And following on this, the final takeaway is that it's quite hard to see P.A. Semi's fingerprints on the A4. The P.A. Semi team, or whatever's left of it inside Apple, certainly didn't design the CPU core, but they may have had some input in assembling the larger SoC out of parts from Samsung's library.

A final bit that the EET group picked up on was the following detail, which I'll quote in full:

At the 27:30 mark of his January keynote, Steve Jobs introduced the A4, but he actually suggests it is not the first custom Apple design. "We have an incredible group that does custom silicon at Apple." He goes on to say that the A4 is, "our most advanced chip we've ever done." That's a pretty good hint they've been at it for a while.

In other words, the A4 is really sort of a coming out for Apple as an SoC designer, and not so much the start of a new era. With the A4, Apple is making a deliberate move to identify itself as a hardware design shop with plans for the ARM space, and not just another Samsung customer.

There are a few ways that Apple's increased level of involvement and visibility in the SoC design space makes sense: 1) Apple intends to sell so many products with its custom SoCs that it will easily recoup the money; 2) for whatever reason, Jobs has always had a thing for powering Apple products with boutique processors that he can talk up in keynotes; and 3) Apple has so many tens of billions in cash right now that it can drop $50 million here and there on a semi acquisition in order to indulge Jobs' quirks.

Note that one motivation that I don't ascribe to Apple is a genuine expectation that the A4 will provide some kind of real price, performance, or efficiency differentiation in the mobile space. Apple is much better positioned to gain significant, market-moving leadership in these areas via software than it is via hardware.

Sure, customization might buy it a few percentage points vs. the commodity competition in one or all of these areas, but mass-market semiconductors are one place where boutique always loses out to commodity, period. This is even more true in a market like smartphones, which are about industrial design, functionality, UI, software availability and stability, ecosystem size, and a host of other factors that are relatively far removed from the world of "we got an extra 15 minutes of battery life and a 10 percent lead in the Sunspider benchmark."

In a way, it's ironic that Apple tried so long for CPU performance leadership on the desktop by using third parties that could never maintain it (and then caved and just went with commodity x86). Now, it seems that it is actually poised to get a real and possibly durable measure of performance leadership with its custom SoCs, it doesn't matter nearly as much.

157 Reader Comments

Rather than using a British English term that isn't widely familiar to most people, why not use a common term that is familiar to both British AND non-British English speakers. Bespoke is just a fancy way of saying custom. Why not just use custom? Its simple, its accurate, its better.

Maybe a newbie question, but why does Apple call the chip that powers iPad/iPhone the A4 when I see other people referring to this generation ARM core as A8? I assume ARM had the core named that years ago; isn't an A4 a step backwards, marketing wise for Apple?

As usual, Ars says what it wants to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Ars admires Apple, but it can't admit that Apple might derive some competitive advantage from designing silicon in house. That's what Ars wants to believe, and that's what Ars is going to write.

Rather than using a British English term that isn't widely familiar to most people, why not use a common term that is familiar to both British AND non-British English speakers. Bespoke is just a fancy way of saying custom. Why not just use custom? Its simple, its accurate, its better.

Bespoke is one of those silly Anglicisms that shouldn't be used by Americans and is slowly driving me into a murderous rage. "Whilst" is another one, and I'm seeing more and more people who have no business using it, using it. It's not even considered stylistically proper by some newspapers in the UK, for fuck's sake. If author had managed to use both "whilst" and "bespoke" in the same headline, I would have been in the headlines myself tomorrow.

As usual, Ars says what it wants to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Ars admires Apple, but it can't admit that Apple might derive some competitive advantage from designing silicon in house. That's what Ars wants to believe, and that's what Ars is going to write.

As usual Mac fans say what they want to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Mac fans admire Ars, but can't admit that anything that isn't praise of the almighty Apple might be truth. That's what mac fans want to believe, and that's what mac fans are going to write.

As usual, Ars says what it wants to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Ars admires Apple, but it can't admit that Apple might derive some competitive advantage from designing silicon in house. That's what Ars wants to believe, and that's what Ars is going to write.

As usual Mac fans say what they want to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Mac fans admire Ars, but can't admit that anything that isn't praise of the almighty Apple might be truth. That's what mac fans want to believe, and that's what mac fans are going to write.

As usual, Ars says what it wants to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Ars admires Apple, but it can't admit that Apple might derive some competitive advantage from designing silicon in house. That's what Ars wants to believe, and that's what Ars is going to write.

As usual Mac fans say what they want to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Mac fans admire Ars, but can't admit that anything that isn't praise of the almighty Apple might be truth. That's what mac fans want to believe, and that's what mac fans are going to write.

Only problem is that I'm not a journalist, nor are most Mac fans. Journalists are supposed to report the facts, the story. Ars is basically hobbled. It can't accurately report or even assess whether Apple derives a competitive benefit from designing silicon in house. What it wants to believe drives the whole story. If you want a real assessment, you won find it here.

As usual, Ars says what it wants to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Ars admires Apple, but it can't admit that Apple might derive some competitive advantage from designing silicon in house. That's what Ars wants to believe, and that's what Ars is going to write.

As usual Mac fans say what they want to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Mac fans admire Ars, but can't admit that anything that isn't praise of the almighty Apple might be truth. That's what mac fans want to believe, and that's what mac fans are going to write.

Only problem is that I'm not a journalist, nor are most Mac fans. Journalists are supposed to report the facts, the story. Ars is basically hobbled. It can't accurately report or even assess whether Apple derives a competitive benefit from designing silicon in house. What it wants to believe drives the whole story. If you want a real assessment, you won't find it here.

The bottom line is the A4 is fast, it's power efficient, and while I don't know how much it costs, it doesn't seem to be a major inhibitor to making reasonably-priced mobile devices. Nothing else really matters. Hopefully the A5 will be a dual core design to help deal with iOS4 multitasking.

Rather than using a British English term that isn't widely familiar to most people, why not use a common term that is familiar to both British AND non-British English speakers. Bespoke is just a fancy way of saying custom. Why not just use custom? Its simple, its accurate, its better.

A tailored suit is one that is made from a pattern and then tailored to your measurements. A bespoke suit is one that is made from scratch based on your measurements. These are words that people use regularly. The title is a play on having something (a processor, a suit) tailored versus made from scratch. Bespoke.

Rather than using a British English term that isn't widely familiar to most people, why not use a common term that is familiar to both British AND non-British English speakers. Bespoke is just a fancy way of saying custom. Why not just use custom? Its simple, its accurate, its better.

A tailored suit is one that is made from a pattern and then tailored to your measurements. A bespoke suit is one that is made from scratch based on your measurements. These are words that people use regularly. The title is a play on having something (a processor, a suit) tailored versus made from scratch. Bespoke.

How dare you try to have a witty headline that not everyone will instantly get!

Rather than using a British English term that isn't widely familiar to most people, why not use a common term that is familiar to both British AND non-British English speakers. Bespoke is just a fancy way of saying custom. Why not just use custom? Its simple, its accurate, its better.

A tailored suit is one that is made from a pattern and then tailored to your measurements. A bespoke suit is one that is made from scratch based on your measurements. These are words that people use regularly. The title is a play on having something (a processor, a suit) tailored versus made from scratch. Bespoke.

A tailored suit is one that is made from a pattern and then tailored to your measurements. A bespoke suit is one that is made from scratch based on your measurements. These are words that people use regularly. The title is a play on having something (a processor, a suit) tailored versus made from scratch. Bespoke.

Definitely not standardized usage. I only wear suits that were made to measure, using cloth that I picked. But, to me and anybody I know, these are "tailored" suits because this is what the tailor who makes the suits does---he/she tailors clothes.

A suit that is made from a pattern (I think you're trying to refer to the ready-made suits in stores) and then altered to better fit you is most definitely not a tailored suit---it is an altered off-the-rack suit, or an altered ready-made suit.

Definitely not standardized usage. I only wear suits that were made to measure, using cloth that I picked. But, to me and anybody I know, these are "tailored" suits because this is what the tailor who makes the suits does---he/she tailors clothes.

A suit that is made from a pattern (I think you're trying to refer to the ready-made suits in stores) and then altered to better fit you is most definitely not a tailored suit---it is an altered off-the-rack suit, or an altered ready-made suit.

I can guarantee you that this is definitely not the standard usage of those terms.

Definitely not standardized usage. I only wear suits that were made to measure, using cloth that I picked. But, to me and anybody I know, these are "tailored" suits because this is what the tailor who makes the suits does---he/she tailors clothes.

A suit that is made from a pattern (I think you're trying to refer to the ready-made suits in stores) and then altered to better fit you is most definitely not a tailored suit---it is an altered off-the-rack suit, or an altered ready-made suit.

All I can say is that I'm glad you have no serious power or control over anything remotely to do with a written language.

As to the motivation on Apple using a "bespoke" processor, let's not forget control of the platform.

By using a custom SoC Apple can or will be able to innovate on the CPU's architecture (adding more exclusive parts to the SoC) without having the market (meaning, HTC and Android) following within a few months with the exact same chip bought from Samsung. This time it was just the ARM core, with questionable performance advantage, maybe the next generation will have something more fundamentally new.

This seems to be what makes most sense, seeing their investment on hardware innovators the past year or couple.

Apple is probably gonna sell over 50-60 mn devices with the A4 chip each year. Is/isn't that a sufficient number to make the cost advantage a real benefit of owning the chip?

It seems to me that no other cellphone is getting the same power efficiency that the iPhone is. Is this a matter of hardware or software?

Apple obviously made an attempt at becoming a chip designer when they bought PA Semi. That was clearly a false start. Maybe they are trying again. Which is not that big a risk when you have 30-40bn in the bank.

I don't really understand the point the article is making. It seems to saying that Apple is designing these chips in-house out of whimsy, which is very improbable on the face of things. Surely Apple believes either this chip or its next iteration provide a competitive advantage in one or more of the following areas: size, heat, power use, price, performance, manufacturing reliability/flexibility/volume, or time to market. If there is reason to think that the chip does not provide Apple with a competitive advantage, and thus that the company is wasting money and resources by designing its own silicon, then I'd like to hear it explained in a clearer way.

In general though, I like these kinds of articles, and Ars usually does them very well.

I'm puzzled. Why haven't the major ARM players, including Apple, moved up beyond the A8 and to the A9? We've been reading that the out-of-order A9 is coming "any day now", and we see demos vs Atom now and then. What gives?

As usual, Ars says what it wants to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Ars admires Apple, but it can't admit that Apple might derive some competitive advantage from designing silicon in house. That's what Ars wants to believe, and that's what Ars is going to write.

As usual Mac fans say what they want to believe, rather than assess what actually might be. Mac fans admire Ars, but can't admit that anything that isn't praise of the almighty Apple might be truth. That's what mac fans want to believe, and that's what mac fans are going to write.

C'monnnn report button (for both of you)

Meh, I'm just frustrated that any time there is an Apple article on Ars that isn't blatant Apple worship, some fan has to get their nickers in a bunch. See the comments on the Copland article. While other on other topics you'll see Arsians debating things as written in the article, you rarely see the level of extremism that is in the Apple posts.

You guys with anti-Apple and pro-Apple shtick: you sound like political pundits relying on meaningless cliches. This is a technology site. The facts are a lot clearer here than they are on MSNBC of Fox, and I don't see any utility in name-calling and mindless blathering.

In short, it's tiring. I read comments to see if anybody else out that can add details or context to the main article. Why don't you folks go comment on YouTube videos or take a walk outside?

4) Apple uses a "custom" A4 processor because then it can claim that it has a performance edge over its commodity A8 rivals, and marketing that to people means they'll go "Well it can't be as fast as an iPhone 4 because that has an A4 processor!".

I've seen that happen already. Someone in a thread about the then-unannounced iPhone had their "ideal" hardware feature list, and it was "A4 processor!!!" even though the iPad had just been announced. To their mind, A4 processor = custom = superior. Apple know a thing or two about marketing, so I'd say that's why.

Ever notice how they've steadfastly refused to use Intel's logo on their processor chip icons? It's set in Myriad, presumably so they can look they "own" that processor or swap it for another manufacturer such as AMD if Intel stop playing nice. In fact, if I remember right when Apple went Intel, Steve made a big song and dance about how they were going to be first using the Core processors.

Rather than using a British English term that isn't widely familiar to most people, why not use a common term that is familiar to both British AND non-British English speakers. Bespoke is just a fancy way of saying custom. Why not just use custom? Its simple, its accurate, its better.

A tailored suit is one that is made from a pattern and then tailored to your measurements. A bespoke suit is one that is made from scratch based on your measurements. These are words that people use regularly. The title is a play on having something (a processor, a suit) tailored versus made from scratch. Bespoke.

I think what most commenters are having issue with is your claim that 'bespoke' is a word in regular usage. It's not. I don't know how frequent this word pops up in regular conversation in California but it's definitely not in favor in the rest of America. It's a British term and I presume (not being British) is more common in usage within the UK but even if the author of the post was British, this is one of those things copy editors are supposed to catch and correct prior to publication. Such whimsical terms may work within the body of an article, depending on context but have no place in the headline of an article.

Frankly, the bulk of Ars' audience is smart enough to know when a term is being used out of place and that's why you guys are being taken to task for this. The best thing to do is just respond to the criticism by acknowledging that this slipped through the editing stage and is an honest mistake.

Shannara wrote:

dlux wrote:

Vendicar Decarian wrote:

Isn't Apple a toy company?

Why would anyone care what CPU they use in their toys?

Hahahaha, boy that was original and insightful.

You should write your own blog. Yeah, really - go do it! Lay out all your articles, get a full pot of coffee going, role up your sleeves, unsubscribe from Ars, and get writing, champ!

Might as well quit trolling, what Vendicar Decarian said is correct.

One man's toy is another man's tool. It's all a matter of perspective and is really personal opinion and therefore there is no singular 'correct' answer. In this case, plenty of people find utility in Apple's products and use them on a daily basis to get things done just like other people find themselves more productive with a Windows or Linux system (and in the mobile space, find RIM and Android devices more suited to them).

Wow. I learn so much about threads at Ars; who knew? I demand that the obnoxiously awkward phrase "clothes horse" be used in an upcoming article about processor architecture.

As far as bespoke (which while not a clothes-oriented American I have definitely heard and used before in a similar context -- "custom suit" or "suit-from-scratch" not so much. "Tailored suit", yes. Anyway...) I agree with Arcadium. With the insane volume that Apple is selling, doesn't that invalidate the meaning of boutique to begin with?

I mean Apple could do whatever it wants with the chip, and it would not be specialized to the extent it is relegated to a small portion of the market. Depending on how you look at it, Apple is/will be a huge chunk of the smartphone market no matter what. Surely that makes whatever eccentricity in hardware design "mainstream" by default?